Import knowledge base articles

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Posted on by StaceyKCRM

I am working with a client to set their support desk to run through Dynamics CRM. They were previously managing their support desk through another application and had a knowledge base built up. How can I import the articles into Dynamics CRM? There are import fields for the Subject, Language, Title, Base Template, Key Words BUT nothing to import the actual content. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

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Bas van de Sande 4,383 on at

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Hi Stacey,

I don't know if you considered the following option (as seen from a developer's perspective):

if the old data is structured, you could setup a custom entity tailored to the knowledge base format. Then import the old data into the new entity.

Perhaps this will point you in the right direction

Bas

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StaceyKCRM 80 on at

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Hi Bas: Thank you for your suggestion. My attempt to use the Knowledge Base was because I wanted to be able to select the "article" from within a Case and have the article display right within the record. This functionality is built into the Case entity, and I wanted to leverage it.

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Community Member on at

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This can be done, but it's not easy. The kbarticle entity wants the data to be in a very specific format.

If you look at the entity fields, there is a content and description field. If you extract the data in those fields, you'll see a bunch of HTML and XML encoding going on, mixed in with the content.

This is a hack, but it might work.

1. Create a KB template that best approximates what the articles looked like in the legacy system. You can have different formats for these templates, refer to the CRM documentation for more information on this.

2. Create some new 'dummy' articles with the new template and save them to CRM.

3. Extract the new records from CRM and investigate the formatting used. You didn't mention if you are on-premise or on-line, but this will be easier if you are on-premise and have access to the SQL server. You can still do this on-line, but you may need to get some tools to get it to a local SQL server. (Kingswaysoft has SSIS tools you can use for this).

4. Re-format the old articles into the new format, then upload them as new records to CRM.

Good luck!

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StaceyKCRM 80 on at

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Hi Chris: Thank you so much for your suggestion. It is On-Prem, so that sounds like it may simplify things a bit. I will give your suggestion a try, many thanks! And I will let you know how it pans out.

Regards,

Stacey

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ashishkhanna 180 on at

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Here is a blog I wrote a while back on how to create KB article using a C# plugin but you can translate this to creating the same using migration script or a tool. As far as I know, you will need to write a custom SSIS package or use a 3rd party tool to do so. Depending on the number of articles that needs to be migrated, 3rd party tool may or may not be feasible so writing a custom console application is also an alternative.

ashishkhanna.wordpress.com/.../creating-a-knowledge-base-article-using-c-plugin

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